


Fly-Boy

by Crollalanza



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: M/M, Suggestion of relationships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-06
Updated: 2016-07-06
Packaged: 2018-07-21 22:22:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,400
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7407445
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Crollalanza/pseuds/Crollalanza
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kicked out of Garrison Academy, Keith retreats to the desert and waits.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fly-Boy

**Author's Note:**

> Because I don't quite believe Keith didn't know exactly who turned up to help Shiro.

The last storming row, that last breach of discipline (another crack at the new training route because damned if he’d let some rich kid take his crown) and the rush in which he’d packed together his meagre possessions, hadn’t weighed heavy on his mind.

But he’d left with a job unfinished. Not flying. Not acing it as a pilot – that was a given. Not topping his class – he didn’t care about that shit now. But that one task. That one promise he’d made to himself, he’d not fulfilled. It wasn’t quite broken, but it was still something he hadn’t made right.

Which was one reason he languished in a ramshackle place, with nothing for company ‘cept his thoughts, instead of heading for the city to carve out a life.

He couldn’t leave.

Not yet.

He had to know why he was here.

Because if he did make the move to the city, getting himself a job delivering pizza (because he didn’t think they’d check references too carefully) he’d be far too out of the loop. At least here, he was close by. On hand should the impossible happen.  Able to move on if their proof proved irrefutable.

In the city, he’d always be wondering. In the desert, he could wait it out. His main problem was how to fill his days and stop the random dreams from spearing his waking thoughts.

He had to concentrate – to stay focused – because any day now ...

 

(That guy’s pretty good.  ~ _Is he?_  
Handsome, too. Haven’t you noticed? ~ _Nope, why would I notice?_  
Quite a ladies man. ~ _So he says._  
He’s tall. _~ So what!_  
Quite a hero.  _~ No, no, he’s not a hero.  
_ Certainly got a smile. ~ _That’s really gonna help when you’re in battle. Smile at your enemies, dazzle them with your personality- what there is of it. Great one. Great one! )_

 

The fly buzzing as it crashed itself into the cracked windowpane woke Keith with a start, banished his dream to the secret corner of his mind, then headed for the shower.

Cold water. He didn’t care. The day would be warm – too warm – so he might as well start it off with ice.

As Keith emerged from the house, stretching his arms in some quasi- greeting of the sun, he stared out at the horizon not even daring to hope today would matter.

Maybe this was about discovering himself, he’d  thought when he’d been drawn to the desert. Find out what he was made of and if he had what it took to survive. Because if he could survive, he who was so much less than anyone else and had nothing to survive for, then -

Deep breath. It would be okay. There’d be an answer. One way or another, he’d work out why he was here.

 

( _So fly-boy, how d’you get here?_

What’s it to you?

_I like to get to know the competition._

I’m not your competition.

_Given up already? We’ve only had one flight. And that was the simulator._

I don’t compete against wannabe cargo pilots.

_CARGO!  I’ll have you know that my Dad is a-_

Yadder yadder. He let Rich Boy’s words flow over him then plugged himself back into his music.)

 

“Would make things a whole lot easier if you found yourself a friend,” Shiro said.

Sitting on a rock, his gaze on a vulture returning to its roosting branch (no dead meat out there today) the memory returned, intruding like a stiletto in his side.

“What good would that do?” he answered. (Although at the time he’d shrugged off Shiro’s arm across his shoulder, then turned away, mooching back to his room, pretending he was asleep so no one would try to talk to him.)

Friends left – or rather they’d drifted away when he’d become something to talk about, rather than talk to.

Shiro left.  _He’s out there. He’s out there. He’s out there._

And when he’d been thirteen, his parents had left.

(He remembered the officer telling him the news, her hand reaching out to curl round his wrist, and he’d flinched because her hand had felt too smooth and not at all like his mom’s, but she’d smelt familiar.  
The same jasmine scent, but his mom’s had been mixed with the gasoline fumes of his dad’s garage.)

“Who could _I_ have been friends with?” he raged to the air. “Some fucking rich kid with a pilot for a Dad, and every privilege handed down to him.”

Showered with gifts. Letters far _more_ than once a week. A huge stack waiting for him whenever they returned from camps away. And his smile – his fucking smile twinned with that delight as he slid his thumb under the envelope flap and ripped it apart.

 _Forget it,_ he told himself furiously.  Forget the people you’ve lost. Forget the shit you’ll never have.

But he couldn’t forget. Shiro’s presence was palpable these days. The memories of better times, times he felt he had a place and a purpose. The Academy should have shaped him, but instead he’d been left formless. And the ache, the pain, the stab of envy at things that were always out his grasp.

 _If that had been me,_ he thought, his eyes as dry as the sand at his feet. _I’d have treasured even the envelopes, not screwed them up to throw in the bin. Inhaled the scent of each letter, each word, every dot and comma. Not laughed and moved on to the next one._

It was too hot for tears. Too much of a distraction, even though the sun was climbing down the sky, he had to stay alert.

 

He was still sitting on the rock – waiting – when he saw the lights in the sky.

Lights hurtling towards the earth, and the screech and boom renting the air. And he knew, _he knew, he knew_ – even though there was no way it could be true - because only one pilot could fly so fast, fly so hard, fly so dangerously and yet still land the ship without endangering anyone else’s life.

Instinct kicked in.  But distance tempered his recklessness, and the months he’d spent alone had honed in his mind at least the vague necessity of a plan.  Loading up his space bike with explosives, donning a suit and bandana round his face, he sped off.

_I’ll make it right. I’ll find out why I’m here. What I’m needed for. Discover a purpose and meaning to all of this. ‘Cause there has to be a reason, doesn’t there?_

 

Here was the link binding it all together. The pull from the desert, the fact he’d never been able to quit, not even when thrown out of the academy, had all led up to this moment. The event he’d hungered for. The day he’d thirsted after. His very reason lay strapped and barely conscious on the bed before him. The hair, the scar, the arm screamed the difference at Keith, but none of it mattered.

Shiro _was_ the event.

And Keith was the catalyst, blazing the path.

The hunger, the yearning to _be_ roared into life. A young lion helping the pride leader, becoming the second in command, they’d take on whatever was happening out there.

Together.

Inseparable.

Comrades in arms, valiant and true.  

Gasoline fumes and jasmine fuelling his rage and purpose, he sliced through the bonds on Shiro’s limbs, and hoisted him off the table. Not a deadweight. Warm and breathing. Alive when it had all seemed so impossible.

 

Then _he_ turned up. Rich boy, turned flying ace (or so he said) intent on grabbing half the glory (what glory?) settling for Shiro’s other arm.

“Who are you?” Keith bluffed.

Lance’s expression shifted to petulance.

“An engineer?” he continued, deadpan. He quashed the perverse leap in his gut as he was rewarded with the scowl, the pout of a spoiled child realising he wasn’t important.

Because no, he wasn’t important. He’d never be important.

Lance was _nothing_ to Keith.

Like the fly buzzing against a broken windowpane, not realising the hole was big enough to lead to freedom, he was Lance the fly-boy: nothing ‘cept a minor irritation infesting Keith’s dreams.  

“I’m a fighter class now thanks to you washing out.”

Annoying _and_ dumb. He should have swatted it away months ago.

“Congratulations,” he snarled as _together_ they dragged Shiro to the door.

The load had lessened, but he refused to think about that now.

**Author's Note:**

> My first for this fandom. I hope you enjoy it.


End file.
